Playing Hooky

When we found out about the "Ladies Ski Day" at Pico Mountain last week while skiing with Ben, we knew we would have to come back and take advantage of this deal again.  So although it was a school day, we played hooky again and headed back over near Rutland, Vermont for another fun day of skiing.  One of the greatest travel buddies we have discovered recently is the audio CD children's books.  Over the past month or so we have read "Indian in the Cupboard", 4 books in the "Boxcar Children" book series and are now listening to "Stuart Little".  I love this because the fighting is practically nonexistent with these and the kids no longer constantly ask for a Kindle to play video games on as we travel.  I am hoping this leads to Robby enjoying reading a bit more and I am also enjoying listening to some fun children's books.  

We had a great day at Pico and were able to ski a little in the morning while Eli was at the Daycare center.  After lunch, we all headed out for some more skiing.  We had a fantastic time until Maddie's elbow got caught in one of the lift safety bars near the end of our day.  She was pretty upset about it and wouldn't move it the entire way home.  Luckily her funny bone healed just fine and she was in fine spirits by bedtime that night.

Robby was pretty excited that I let him ski most of the day with his ski poles that he isn't quite ready to use

One of Maddie and Robby's favorite parts about Pico is the smaller lifts that they are allowed to ride on with each other and the smallest one that they can ride all by themselves.

After an upsetting pack up with Maddie howling about how badly her elbow was hurting, she promptly nodded off for a nap most of the way home.  She is actually wearing Robby's sweat shirt after complaining that she was freezing cold :)

Spring Break: New England Style

I was thrilled when I got a text message a few months back from my favorite brother Ben announcing that he had his Spring Break from graduate school coming up in March.  He had caught the "skiing bug" and was trying to find somewhere to do this.  Luckily it didn't take much persuasion to get him to drive over and spend the week with us.  Our kids were once again beyond thrilled to have more family come to visit.  

I started searching local/relatively close ski resorts and the best deals for all of us.  In the end we kind of put plans in stone at the last minute, but it all turned out great.  Ben arrived LATE Monday evening.....3am late.  Because of this, we had a relatively relaxing day on Tuesday complete with sleeping in, kids in school, board games, chit chat, piano playing, and yummy food.

The next day, Ben and I headed out to the Dartmouth Skiway WITHOUT kids to ski for the day.  All the kids had school and Eli was watched by a good friend after his preschool.  We managed to borrow a friends skis for Ben that happened to be nearly the same shoe size and only a few inches taller than Ben.  Pretty much perfect.  We had a great time hanging out together on the lifts, trying some fun moguls and hills, racing down the mountain, crashing a few times a piece, and laughing together.  It has been a really long time since I have spent a day on the slopes without children.  

Around 2 pm we loaded up and headed back home to pick up Eli, grab the kids ski equipment, and pick up from school to head over to Whaleback Mountain for after school ski.  Once M and R were ready to ski, we got 4 pm lift tickets (<$10) and all headed back out.  Maddie especially had a great time with Ben after her lessons and got to show off her "Double Black Diamond" skills to a rather stunned Uncle.  In Ben's terms "I think she might be better than me".  That is quite possible, but more than anything she is fearless.  By the time evening hit, we were all exhausted and stopped and grabbed our family favorite Little Caesars Pizza.  

The next morning (Thursday), we loaded up our stuff, kept the kids home from school, and headed over near Killington to a Vermont local favorite ski resort "Pico Mountain".  This mountain was incredible.  It was way cheaper than the big resorts but nearly as large and had lots of lifts to ride and plenty of great snow.  Ben took M and R on some of the bigger lifts while I stuck with Eli.  We spent 5+ hours skiing to hearts content.  When we were all tuckered out, we packed up and headed back home.  We have found great pleasure in listening to audio books in the car as of recent and enjoyed listening to the end of "Indian in the Cupboard".  I am amazed at how well behaved my children are when we turn these on.  I don't think we ever pulled out the Kindles during the one hour car ride there or back.

Too soon I had to say my goodbyes to little bro and head off to work.  He left later on that evening with the plan that we will see each other at some point this summer.  I have really enjoyed him coming twice to visit this year.  It has been amazing to get to know him on an "adult level", instead of just being my little brother.  

*I loved all the beautiful music he played on our piano keyboard*

*The Dartmouth Skiway-- this place will always hold many fond memories of this year*

*Eli was so proud of his fighter airplane he built out of Trios that he wanted a picture of it*

*both members of the "Double Black Diamond Club"*

*Mommy and her crazy skiing kiddos at Pico Mountain*

*I love hanging out with this cutie on the mountain*

Winter Break: Saturday

We decided to try to get to Ski resort "early" on Saturday.  This meant leaving the house around 9:30am and starting to ski around 10am.  I was so excited to bring Jesse along so that he could see the progress our children have made.  I was equally excited to have the freedom to go on a few runs by myself.  It was really fun to show him how much better they have all gotten at skiing and to see him excited to take the biggies on the ski lift.  He shot some pretty good footage of each of the kids skiing, and he enjoyed riding up the ski lift with Rubba.  We even did one run where all five of us went up the ski lift. 

On Thursday, Eli rode the J-Bar up all by himself on the last two runs of the day {and then skied down the hill with the backpack harness}.  He was very insistent that he also do this by himself on Saturday as well. It was a proud moment to see him go up the lift all by himself over and over again without falling. 

The boys petered out around 12:30pm and Jesse took them to the car. Maddie was still wanting to ski some more, so I ended up taking her down 4-5 more times.  I truly enjoyed being able to ski with my daughter.  She is finally hitting a point where it is no longer a chore to have her ski with me.  She can ski down most of the beginner/intermediate runs and even learned how to ski over moguls. 

My cute Eli boy riding the lift in front of me

Pictures with Maddie on our ski date up the mountain

Winter Break: Thursday

Day Four of my children's Winter Break included more of our favorite new hobby: Skiing

I have seriously loved having passes to the Dartmouth Skiway and have used them over and over, making it well worth the money spent.  Luckily the children all seem to enjoy doing it as well. 

 I love how Maddie asks me every single morning if it will be a ski day.  If not, she comes up with all sorts of reasons why we should go.  She has been fearless and tough.  She apparently tried a rather large jump at ski lessons a few weeks back, fell and had a bruised/scratched left cheek for several days.  When it happened, she brushed herself off after a few tears and continued to ski the rest of the time without any complaints.  She wasn't scared to immediately try another jump.  Because of her fearlessness, she has rapidly improved and is now going over small jumps and landing them every time.  She is also skiing parallel nearly all the time and has been bothering me excessively about when she will get her own ski poles.  For now, she is content to borrow mine when we are on the bunny hill.

Robby has also grown to like skiing much more than when the season began.  Of all my children, he is the most hesitant to try a new thing.  He also tends to get very frustrated at himself with failure of any kind.  This includes trying new sports/activities and being unsuccessful in the beginning.  This school year, we have been really focusing on him being brave with these new situations and he is gradually improving.  I have been really proud of Robby this year.  Even though he has had frustrating situations on the slopes and grows tired of skiing after a few hours, he has really pushed through and is learning how to ski!  He was especially excited when he learned how to walk sideways up to the small jump by the J Bar.  He figured out that he actually could do this jump and land it. Huge mommy moment right there when he came over to me and told me that he did it. 

Of all of my children, Eli is by the silliest.  Jesse and I joke around that he is our blonde silly little airhead.  He lives in the moment and gets distracted quite easily.  He laughs his way through life for the most part and everything is a joke.  When I first started teaching him to ski, he approached it the same way.  Instead of taking things seriously, he would just laugh at me and do whatever he felt like.  Talk about frustrating when you are trying to teach safety and technique for skiing.  After a particularly frustrating day, I had a brilliant idea.  I started putting him between my skis and holding his arms while we skied together.  I am sure many of you are wondering why I didn't think about this before.  Answer: I don't know.  Nevertheless, it worked.  Another thing I did was to finally get over my irrational fear of using the harness backpack.  For some reason the first time I tried the harness I felt awkward and the straps seemed to tangle up.  When I tried it again, I finally figured out how to hold onto the straps correctly and I learned how to help steer him down the mountain.  This was a revolutionary experience. Because of this I can finally take all the children up the ski lift and slowly make it down the mountain with Eli.  My knees do tend to get a bit sore from snow plowing so much, but at least it allows me to do a bit more skiing than I get on the bunny hill.

I am really looking forward to skiing as a WHOLE family this Saturday!

Robby looks like a total stud in his ski gear

Eli showing off his harness backpack that we use.  He loves wearing his "Ninja ski mask" and it cracks me up how little you can see his face

I finally caught a picture of Miss M with BOTH skis off the ground.  She has been borrowing my poles which are much to big on the little hills.  Thank goodness we finally ordered two pairs of ski poles for our biggies that just came in the mail.

I nearly caught a picture of Robby mid air. But not quite.  Oh well, next time

Winter Break: Monday

We just got finished with our annual "Winter Break" from school and then had a "No-Snow Snow Day" and so I am officially hitting catch up mode.  I was more than excited to have school back in session this week and resume normal activities, but I have to admit we had quite a bit of fun.  It was nice to return to lazy sleep-in mornings, fun craft projects, lots of skiing, and other exciting things to do. I tried to come up with one major activity to do each day and then lots of small things.  Luckily, two of my three children are home-bodies and are completely content to just hang out around the house {Miss M constantly wants to be off doing something}. Some of our fun activities included:

Monday- Skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway
Tuesday- Swimming at the Upper Valley Aquatic Center. M came to my cookie decorating RS activity
Wednesday- Montshire Museum with the Holbrook family.
Thursday- Skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway
Friday- Birthday party for Maddie/Movie Theater with the boys; Bowling with the Monteleone's.
Saturday- Skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway as a whole family {with daddy}.

I am going to highlight Monday in this post and then will do smaller versions for each of the other days, so I don't end up with a gigantic post with way lots of pictures.

My view up the J-Bar lift.  I love seeing my bigger two ahead of me on the lift looking so grown up

Mr E nestled between my skis up the hill. I have really enjoyed teaching Eli how to ski this year.  It is challenging and frustrating at times, but also incredibly rewarding. 

Not to mention CHEAPER than paying for lessons

Maddie enjoyed hiking up the hill a bit to try her hand at jumping.  She has gotten pretty comfortable on her skis and is such a risk taker in every aspect of her life

Maddie was upset that I didn't get one of her in actual mid-air during her jump.  

I tried over and over again and blamed the sun light and an old camera for this. 

{a new quality camera is on my bucket list of things I want post-grad school}

Mommy Eli Date

Eli and I have had the pleasure of going on several ski dates together while the "biggies" are at school.  I love having one on one time with Eli and I love skiing, so it's been a win win situation.  I am so proud of him as well.  He has improved so much over the past month or two. The best part is to ski down with him while he yells "wheee, this is fuuuun!"  He then adds "let's do it aGAIN" as we approach the bottom.  

I am looking forward to many more years of skiing with this cute family of mine.  I am also silently half-praying we end up somewhere cool with skiing nearby {the other half of me says that this nonsense is crazy and that all we need is a beach and warm weather}

*gross little side note: Eli has this really bad habit of chewing the top of his coat.  Not really sure why, but his coat is in pristine condition other than the gnawed piece right above the zipper.  He is once again chewing his jacket in this photo

Skiing with Daddy

Maddie and Robby had a great Saturday skiing with their Daddy.  I was a proud Mom to see them all pack up their ski equipment and head out the door together.  It was officially the first trip Robby has taken without me tagging along.  It shows that they are both finally big enough to ski completely independently while Jesse snowboarded next to them.  They had a great time together at the Skiway and already can't wait to do it again!

Skiing with the Biggies

MLK Day found me and the "bigger" kids at the Dartmouth Skiway for a fun afternoon of skiing.  J graciously watched E at home for us.  I was a little apprehensive about how Rubba would do on the slopes.  Thankfully, this worry was completely unwarranted.  Robby skied like a champ! 

After several runs on the Jbar Bunny Hill we all headed over to the ski lift.  Robby has been bugging me since Day 1 about when he would get to go on the ski lift. He was so excited to finally do it!  He got a little scared in the middle of the lift.  He didn't realize that we would be suspended so high in the air.  He was also a little nervous at the top.  The mountain suddenly appeared much steeper than he originally thought.  Luckily he has mastered his pizza feet and used them nearly the whole way down.  By the second run he was starting to turn!  We went down several more times and they were both BEAT by the time we finished.  

Maddie has really gotten so much better this year.  I am constantly blown away at how much she is learning. She started this season only slightly knowing how to turn and do pizza feet, she had never ridden a ski lift in her life and was definitely not ready for any slopes whatsoever.  She can now turn quite easily, is well accomplished at pizza "snow plowing" feet and is beginning to ski and turn straight.  As far as the ski lift, she thinks she is a total pro.  In reality, she is quickly becoming comfortable riding on them and she loves the challenge of the steeper slopes. 

Overall I am such a proud mother to see my children having such a fun time on the slopes.  It is so rewarding to share one of your passions with your children and to see them sharing in the enthusiasm and enjoyment.  I can't wait for many more ski seasons in the future!